Sixty-five of the world’s leading writers open up about the books and authors that have meant the most to them

Every Sunday, readers of The New York Times Book Review turn with anticipation to see which novelist, historian, short story writer, or artist will be the subject of the popular By the Book feature. These wide-ranging interviews are conducted by Pamela Paul, the editor of the Book Review, and here she brings together sixty-five of the most intriguing and fascinating exchanges, featuring personalities as varied as David Sedaris, Hilary Mantel, Michael Chabon, Khaled Hosseini, Anne Lamott, and James Patterson. The questions and answers admit us into the private worlds of these authors, as they reflect on their work habits, reading preferences, inspirations, pet peeves, and recommendations.

For the devoted reader, By the Book is a way to invite sixty-five of the most interesting guests into your world. It’s a book party not to be missed. Contributors include:

Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham is the creator, producer, and star of HBO’s Girls and the author of Not That Kind of Girl.

Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is the author of Coraline, The Graveyard Book, Odd and the Frost Giants, The Wolves in the Walls, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, among other books.

Mary Higgins Clark

Mary Higgins Clark has written suspense novels, collections of short stories, a historical novel, children’s books, and a memoirm.

Drew Gilpin

Drew Gilpin Faust is the president of Harvard University and the author of Mothers of Invention, among other books.

Carl Hiaasen

John Irving

John Irving is the author of The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, In One Person, and A Prayer for Owen Meany, among other books.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray, Love. Her other books include The Last American Man, Committed, and The Signature of All Things.

Richard Ford

Richard Ford is the author of The Sportswriter, Independence Day, Canada, and The Lay of the Land, among other novels.

Colin Powell

Colin Powell is a former secretary of state, national security adviser, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His books include My American Journey and It Worked for Me.

Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers is the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, How We Are Hungry, You Shall Know Our Velocity, What is the What, Zeitoun, and A Hologram for the King, among other books.

Sylvia Nasar

Sylvia Nasar is the author of A Beautiful Mind and Grand Pursuit, She teaches at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Ira Glass

Ira Glass is the producer and host of the public radio program “This American Life.”

Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz is the author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, This Is How You Lose Her, and Drown.

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than forty novels, including We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, and The Accursed.

Nicholson Baker

Nicholson Baker is the author of novels including The Anthologist, Vox, and The Fermata, and works of nonfiction including Human Smoke and Double Fold.

Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson is an Oscar-winning screenwriter and actress who is also the author of two children’s books.

Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon is the author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and Telegraph Avenue, among other books.

Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides is the author of The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex, and The Marriage Plot.

JK Rowling

J. K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter series and the novels The Casual Vacancy, The Cuckoo’s Calling, and The Silkworm, the last two under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

David Mitchell

David Mitchell is the author of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Black Swan Green, Cloud Atlas, Number9Dream, and Ghostwritten.

John Grisham

John Grisham is the author of The Firm, A Time to Kill, and Sycamore Row, among other novels.

PJ O’Rourke

P. J. O'Rourke is the author of books on politics, economics, and cultural commentary, including Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, and Eat the Rich.

Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott is the author of many books including Operating Instructions, Bird by Bird, Traveling Mercies, Some Assembly Required, and Help, Thanks, Wow.

Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan is the author of the novels Amsterdam, Atonement, Saturday, Solar, and On Chesil Beach, among other books.

Lee Child

Lee Child is the author of a series of thrillers featuring the protagonist Jack Reacher, including Killing Floor, The Enemy, and One Shot.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger served as governor of California from 2003 to 2011. Before that, he was an actor and a champion body builder. He is the author of the memoir Total Recall, among other books.

Francine Prose

Francine Prose is the author of many books including Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932; A Changed Man; Blue Angel; Anne Frank,; and Reading Like a Writer.

Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond is a professor of geography at UCLA and the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel; Collapse; and The World Until Yesterday; among other books.

Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton is the author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Art of Travel and The Consolations of Philosophy, among other books.

Dave Barry

Dave Barry is the author, most recently, of Insane City, I’ll Mature When I’m Dead, and Dave Barry’s History of the Millennium (So Far).

Katherine Boo

Katherine Boo is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Behind the Beautiful Forevers.

Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is the author of Housekeeping, Gilead, Home, and Mother Country, among other books.

Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Sandberg is the chief operating officer at Facebook and the author of Lean In.

Caroline Kennedy

Caroline Kennedy is the U.S. ambassador to Japan and the editor of books on American history, politics, constitutional law and poetry, including She Walks in Beauty and A Family of Poems.

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende is the author of The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna, and The Island Beneath the Sea, among other works.

Anna Quindlen

Anna Quindlen is the author of novels and nonfiction works, including A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Object Lessons, Still Life with Breadcrumbs, and One True Thing.

Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen is the author of Freedom and The Corrections, among other books.

Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel is the author of twelve books, including the novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and the short story collection The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher.

Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley is the author of many books including the Easy Rawlins mysteries series, which started with Devil in a Blue Dress.

Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini is the author of The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and And the Mountains Echoed.

Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls is the author of books including The Glass Castle, The Silver Star, and Half Broke Horses.

Dan Brown

Dan Brown is the author of The Da Vinci Code, Inferno, The Lost Symbol, Angels & Demons, Deception Point, and Digital Fortress.

Dan Savage

Dan Savage is the author of It Gets Better, American Savage, Skipping Towards Gomorrah, and The Kid, among other books.

Christopher Buckley

Christopher Buckley is the author of Thank You For Smoking, Losing Mum And Pup, and But Enough About You, among other books.

Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the novels Prep, The Man of My Dreams, Sisterland, and American Wife.

James McBride

James McBride is the author of The Good Lord Bird, The Color of Water, Song Yet Sung, and Miracle at St. Anna.

James Patterson

James Patterson is the author of many books including the Alex Cross novels, which include Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider; the Women's Murder Club novels; and the Michael Bennett series.

Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem is the author of Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, Dissident Gardens, and Chronic City, among other books.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of the Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland.

Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is the author of many books including The God Delusion, The Selfish Gene, and An Appetite for Wonder.

Sting

Sting is an award-winning singer, songwriter, and human rights activist. He is the author of Broken Music: A Memoir.

Andrew Solomon

Andrew Solomon is the author of Far From the Tree and The Noonday Demon.

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is the author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers,What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath.

Scott Turow

Scott Turow is the author of Presumed Innocent, Innocent, and Identical, among other novels. His works of nonfiction include One L and Ultimate Punishment.

Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt is the author of the novels The Goldfinch, The Secret History, and The Little Friend.

Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is the author of Bel Canto, The Patron Saint of Liars, and Truth and Beauty, among other books.

Amy Tan

Amy Tan is the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter, Saving Fish from Drowning, and TheValley of Amazement, among other books.

Bryan Cranston

Bryan Cranston is an actor best known for his starring roles on the television series Breaking Bad and Malcolm in the Middle, and is the winner of three Emmy awards and a Golden Globe award.

Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly is the author of many books including The Black Box, The Drop, The Fifth Witness, The Reversal, The Scarecrow, The Brass Verdict, The Lincoln Lawyer, and the Harry Bosch series.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, the host of Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey, and the author of The Pluto Files, among other books.

E.L. Doctorow

E.L. Doctorow is the author of many books including The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, Loon Lake, World's Fair, Billy Bathgate, The March, and most recently, Andrew’s Brain.

Chang rae-Lee

Chang-rae Lee is the author of Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, Aloft, The Surrendered, and On Such a Full Sea.

Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart is the author of the novels Super Sad True Love Story, Absurdistan, and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. His most recent book is Little Failure: A Memoir.

Rachel Kushner

Rachel Kushner is the author of The Flamethrowers and Telex from Cuba.

David Sedaris

David Sedaris is the author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, Naked, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, and Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, among other books.

By the Book contains the full uncut interviews, offering a range of experiences and observations that deepens readers’ understanding of the literary sensibility and the writing process. It also features dozens of sidebars that reveal the commonalities and conflicts among the participants, underscoring those influences that are truly universal and those that remain matters of individual taste.

David Sedaris

David Sedaris is the author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, Naked, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, and Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, among other books.

What book is on your night stand now?
I was a judge for this year’s Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, so until very recently I was reading essays written by clever high school students. Now I’ve started Shalom Auslander’s Hope: A Tragedy. His last book, Foreskin’s Lament, really made me laugh.

When and where do you like to read?Throughout my twenties and early thirties—my two-books-per-week years—I did most of my reading at the International House of Pancakes. I haven’t been to one in ages, but at the time, if you went at an off-peak hour, they’d give you a gallon-sized pot of coffee and let you sit there as long as you liked. Now, though, with everyone hollering into their cellphones, it’s much harder to read in public, so I tend to do it at home, most often while reclining.

What was the last truly great book you read?I’ve read a lot of books that I loved recently. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by a woman named Barbara Demick, was a real eye-opener. In terms of “great,” as in “This person seems to have reinvented the English language,” I’d say Wells Tower’s Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. What an exciting story collection it is, unlike anything I’ve ever come across.

J.K. Rowling

J. K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter series and the novels The Casual Vacancy, The Cuckoo’s Calling, and The Silkworm, the last two under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

What were your favorite books as a child?The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge; Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott; Manxmouse, by Paul Gallico; everything by Noel Streatfeild; everything by E. Nesbit; Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell (indeed, anything with a horse in it).

Did you have a favorite character or hero as a child? Do you have a literary hero as an adult?
My favorite literary heroine is Jo March. It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo, who had a hot temper and a burning ambition to be a writer.

What’s the best book your mother ever gave or read to you?
She gave me virtually all the books mentioned above. My most vivid memory of being read to is my father reading The Wind in the Willows when I was around four and suffering from the measles. In fact, that’s all I remember about having the measles: Ratty, Mole, and Badger.

If you could bring only three books to a desert island, which would you pack?
Collected works of Shakespeare (not cheating—I’ve got a single volume of them); collected works of P. G. Wodehouse (two volumes, but I’m sure I could find one); collected works of Colette.

Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is the author of Housekeeping, Gilead, Home, and Mother Country, among other books.

Are you a rereader? What books do you find yourself returning to again and again?
I do reread. I tend to think of the reading of any book as preparation for the next reading of it. There are always intervening books or facts or realizations that put a book in another light and make it different and richer the second or the third time.

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?
A wonderful writer has given the best of herself or himself in the work. I think many of them are frustrated by the thinness and inadequacy of ordinary spoken language, of ordinary contact even with the people they know best and love best. They turn to writing for this reason. I think many of them are magnanimous in a degree their lives cannot otherwise express. To meet Emily Dickinson or Henry James would be, from their side, to intrude on them, maybe even to make them feel inadequate to expectation. I can’t imagine being a sufficient reason for the disruption. We do have their books. That said, I would like to meet William James.

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is the author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath.

Many a book is now touted as The Tipping Point for X or Y, or generally Gladwellian. What do you make of the many imitators and homages?
I’m flattered, naturally. Although I should point out that it is sometimes said that I invented this genre. I did not. Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross did.

In general, what kinds of stories are you drawn to? Any you steer clear of?
I don’t think I will ever write about politics or foreign policy. I feel like there is so much good writing in those areas that I have little to add. I also like to steer clear of writing about people whom I do not personally like. My rule is that if I interview someone, they should never read what I have to say about them and regret having given me the interview.

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?
I have—by conservative estimate—several hundred novels with the word “spy” in the title.

What do you plan to read next?
Something with the word “spy” in the title.

Earl Wilson / The New York Times

Pamela Paul is the editor of The New York Times Book Review and the author of Parenting, Inc., Pornified, and The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony. Prior to joining the Times, Paul was a contributor to Time magazine and The Economist, and her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and Vogue. She and her family live in New York.

What kind of reader were you as a child? And what were your favorite childhood books?
I was the kind of obsessive and voracious reader that actually frightened grownups. My local public library was across the street from my elementary school and I would stop there for hours on the way home. I read the children’s library’s entire wall of biographies – I knew everything there was to know about Dolley Madison and Florence Nightingale. I begged the librarian to allow me to reshelve books for them but was sternly rebuffed. She must have seen a dangerous gleam in my eye.
As a child, I loved the twin titans of 70s girlhood: Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume. Also Madeleine L’Engle. I adored the “B is for Betsy” series by Carolyn Haywood and the “Ginnie and Geneva” series. I grew up with seven brothers so I did not like to read about boys. Even when I read Archie comics, I went for the Betty and Veronicas.

You’re hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited?
Dorothy Parker, H. L. Mencken and Mark Twain. It would be feisty and fierce – something would get spilled and someone might actually get hurt – but I could just lean back and listen, and wonder what each would write about it the next day.

Which three books do you bring to a desert island?
The Bible, because I never got past Cain and Abel in my children’s edition – too violent and male-centric. War and Peace because I’ve been meaning to re-read it, and this would give me a chance. The Golden Bowl because it was the one assigned book in college that I never got around to reading.